A Mother’s Matter

Move to support workplace breastfeeding

Advocates are seeking to provide new mothers with enhanced support to breastfeed and pump breast milk while at their workplaces.

Advocates gathered at City Hall.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, joined by mothers and health advocates, was at City Hall on Fri., July 7 to promote breastfeeding rights for women. She announced she would soon introduce the Supporting Working Moms Act, legislation that would expand protections for break time and private accommodations for mothers to pump breast milk at work.

The proposed legislation seeks to enhance breastfeeding rights at work.

“Breastfeeding plays an important role in the health and development of children,” said Maloney. “It is the right choice for millions of women and children, and it is a human right that should be protected for both women and infants.”

In 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Barack Obama signed a Maloney-sponsored bill into law that granted nursing mothers in traditional hourly labor jobs with adequate space and time to pump breast milk during a work shift.

The new bill would expand the law to include businesses with fewer than 50 employees, as the 2010 law only pertained to companies with 50 workers or more.

“They could not be fired because they chose to pump milk on their own breaks,” Maloney said. “I found it really outlandish that they allow breaks for smoking and everything, but if you used your break to pump milk or feed your child, that was grounds to be dismissed.”

The Congresswoman has helped steward legislation to protect the rights of breastfeeding women. In addition to the 2010 law, Maloney sponsored a bill in 1999 that granted women the right to breastfeed on federal property, after learning of women being asked to leave federal courthouses as well as the U.S. Capitol.

Dr. Susan Vierczhalek, Chairperson of the NY Statewide Breasfeeding Coalition, said it is difficult for mothers to continue to breastfeed once they return to work, and that a stigma still exists for breastfeeding in public or at the office.

“Our goal is to help mothers meet their goals and to make breastfeeding normal,” said Vierczhalek. “We want to get to a day where mothers can breastfeed and nobody will look, nobody will think twice.”

“It’s strange for us that we have to fight for breastfeeding rights,” remarked Theresa Landau, Chairperson of the NYC Breastfeeding Leadership Council, Inc. “It should be a human right.”

Landau noted that children who are breastfed tend to be healthier, and said that mothers who continue breastfeeding when they return to work also tend to have fewer health issues, and miss fewer work days because of it.

“We as a society have to make it easier for our moms and our families,” Landau added. “It’s up to us to make sure our moms succeed. It’s up to us to make sure a mom’s choice to breastfeed is supported.”

“It was a big help to me,” said Adama Sambou, here with her children, of the program.

Landau said the NYC Breastfeeding Leadership Council works with women in the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program, which provides low-income mothers with breast pumping equipment.

“It was a big help to me,” said Adama Sambou, who enrolled in the program. “I learned a lot about nutrition and had [the] help of a support group.”

Sambou now works as a peer counselor helping other breastfeeding WIC moms. She said the new legislation would go a long way to help low-income women returning to the workplace after giving birth.

“I think it will give a lot of support,” she said. “It’s a big challenge, as many new mothers are going back to work after two weeks, six weeks because they need the money.”

Advocates said that low-income women are less likely to advocate for themselves when it comes to pumping breast milk in the workplace, due to fear of losing their job

“They’re afraid to go to their boss and ask for breaks, or ask for a place to pump,” said Kathleen Carpenter, Breastfeeding Coordinator at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s WIC Program.

“It should be a human right,” said Theresa Landau.

Larger corporations in New York City have facilities that are more conducive to providing space for pumping, with some offering private lactation rooms. Advocates agreed that smaller businesses face greater challenges in providing accommodations that the new legislation would require.

“It will require them to get a little creative,” remarked Carpenter.

“Most women would likely say they don’t need anything fancy, just someplace private,” Landau said. “We’ve heard stories of some businesses forcing women to take their lunch into the ladies room to pump, or making them go into their car. That’s not acceptable.”